Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Aptronym Aptronym alert alert
Accidentally continuing with visual perception...
KSHS has added a series of stereographs made by Underwood and Underwood in Ottawa, around 1903.
Underwood and Underwood, of course, is the perfect aptronym aptronym for a maker maker of stereographs.
The brief description says that U + U were immediately successful, and moved to NYC with branch offices in many major cities.
Hey! Where is our 3D television? Never happened. Where are 3D movies? Happened for a little while then faded. For that matter, where is Smell-O-Vision? Promised repeatedly for 60 years, still hasn't happened.
Plain fact: News and culture in 3D were VASTLY MORE ACCESSIBLE in 1903 than now. Stereograph viewers were common from 1900 to 1960, then disappeared.
We've lost an interesting way of seeing things. Yeah, we have VR, but that's expensive and specialized, nowhere near mass entertainment.
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Later thought: This is the only situation where sound technology jumped ahead of visual technology. We got 3D sound in 1958, and it quickly and permanently turned universal. All forms of sound media are transmitted and stored in stereo, whether we actually use two speakers or not.
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Later: KSHS now has a picture of an Underwood and Underwood stereoscope. It's an odd mixture of crude and professionally made parts. Note the rounded rectangle viewports, presaging TV!
Labels: 1901, Aptronym Alert
¶ 5:02 PM
